Thursday saw my 8-song solo spectacular at Wimbledon Library. I turned up at 6pm, and met with Jim-Bob, once of Carter USM, who was the headline act and was wearing the same as me (an unimaginative ensemble of Converse, jeans, and t-shirt.) His manager then came through the door wearing exactly the same outfit, and I began to worry that I’d stepped into some lame indiepop remake of the Stepford Wives. I went on at about 7.30pm in front of an audience of about 40 people, of whom the nearest to me and my keyboard was a 3-year old girl who was prone to yawning and rolling her eyes wildly, in that way 3-year-olds do. I was concerned that the downbeat nature of my tunes would leave the poor toddler with no appetite for life; I said so. Her father made a gesture that said “don’t worry about it, mate.” But I did. And I do. 3 minutes of the song “Holiday At Home” can turn even the most optimistic cove into a shadow of their former selves.

On Friday I had a burger which was labelled on the menu as an “Oz Burger”, or similar. Its contents were: lamb, a fried egg, grated beetroot, a pineapple ring, onion and rocket. If ozgirlabroad could give me any indication as to why this motley collection of ingredients is at all representative of Australia, I’d be most grateful. I’d also be grateful for suggestions for other national burgers and a list of suitable but unappetizing ingredients, e.g.

Welsh Burger: 8oz of premium lamb, garnished with leeks, castles, snooker, cheese, Bryn Terfel and daffodils.

Yum. Readers who haven’t been put off by my erratic timeline of posting on this journal may remember my encounter with Curtis Stigers in a pub in West London. Well, Curtis stayed true to his word and provided Jenny and I with tickets to his performance last night at the Ashcroft Theatre in Croydon. Now, I don’t want to get on the wrong side of martylog, what with all his new showbusiness chums and whathaveyou, but man alive, spending a drizzly grey Sunday evening in Croydon town centre has to rank as one of the most dispiriting activities known to mankind. Crawling through the Sahara desert with half a can of Fanta would seem like a picnic by comparison. The turning of each corner greeted us with a new and upsetting example of ill-thought out 60s architecture – not least the venue itself, on which was hung the following:

I bet Mr Stigers has dreamed for years of seeing his name up there in plastic.

Inside the venue were significant numbers of official-looking grey haired men in blazers, mostly sitting in chairs, mostly half-asleep. In a cordonned-off lounge area, labelled with a sign saying “lounge area open”, there were a number of comfortable settees on which you could sit and watch “Heartbeat” on ITV. A policeman thereon answered the telephone. “Someone has found a man’s crutch by the side of the road,” he informed the sergeant. “We’d better get all our boys onto this at once, inform MI5 and put a call in to International Rescue,” replied the sergeant, or should have done. The lame subplot of a local dignitary accidentally ingesting magic mushrooms proved too much, so we departed for the auditorium downstairs. Curtis was stunning, actually – a great band, and he’s geniunely funny. “We love you,” shouted some middle aged woman. “And I love you,” said Curtis, “but not you specifically, of course,” he added.

In the same venue last night, in an adjacent room, Ken Dodd was performing. But from our arrival to our departure we saw none of Doddy’s audience. Knowing Ken’s penchant for overrunning, it’s entirely possible that he’s still midway through his encores right now (9.04am, Monday.)